Religion has become big, big business

HOUSTON -- When I was here recently on other business, I stopped by the national gathering of the Union of Reform Judaism at the George R. Brown Convention Center.
I wandered the huge exhibit hall, as I did when I attended another national religious convention, the 2003 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in Denver.
The exhibit space here was similar to what I saw in Denver -- simply gigantic. It was more evidence of something we don't think about very much -- the economic impact of religion.
When adjoining exhibit halls F and G here are combined at the Brown center, as they were for the Reform Judaism conference, they offer more than 220,000 square feet of space. You could find there not just booths displaying information about various Jewish interest groups, (like the North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry) but also vendors selling books, jewelry, travel arrangements, art work and much more.
I have not been able to ascertain exactly how big the religion sector of the economy is, but it must be huge. If you want a place to start thinking about this, just imagine the construction (and remodeling or expansion) of churches, synagogues, mosques and other worship centers around the nation. But there's so much more.
Hundreds of thousands of people work as full- or part-time employees of faith communities. In addition to priests, rabbis, ministers and imams, there are music directors, educators, secretaries, child-care workers, custodians and more (including fitness experts in some of the mega-churches).
Universities and seminaries are full of religion teachers and scholars who produce not only educated students but also enough books and articles to wipe out a pretty good size national forest. So publishing houses, both religious and secular, become part of this growing picture. Well, newspapers, too, which employ people (not enough, but a few) to write about religion.
Tour guides
Beyond all that, there are religious tour guides willing to take groups to Mecca, Israel, India, Scotland, Geneva, Rome and on and on. Sculptors, painters, dancers and musicians render religious ideas into art that fills worship centers, homes, galleries, museums, theaters and even discount stores.
There are whole industries producing collars for priests, vestments, stoles, choir robes, yarmulkes, hijabs and other religious clothing -- to say nothing of "What Would Jesus Do" bracelets, candles, pipe organs, greeting cards for religious holidays and business cards for everybody in the religion business, including managers of retreat and conference centers and church camps galore.
Some of my Baptist friends joke that what they spend on church buses and vans helps keeps the automotive industry in the black. And all of this -- including those Baptist buses -- requires insurance and other financial services, in addition to mechanics.
Religion even keeps scholars busy studying how its practices and beliefs affect the economy. A couple of years ago, two Harvard University researchers got grants from the National Science Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation to study what role religious beliefs and worship attendance plays in economic growth.
But there are other ways in which religion and economics intersect. Religious beliefs influence the way we think about money, wealth and poverty.
People striving to promote economic growth aren't likely to be especially enamored of religious thinking that suggests poverty -- or at least purposeful simplicity -- may be a virtue. If religion teaches people not to focus on acquiring material goods beyond the necessities, it would be in tension with hyper-capitalists, who want us to buy a raft of things we don't need and replace it all with newer models next year.
Religion also provides an ethical framework for conducting business. Indeed, the Hebrew scriptures are full of admonitions about how to be fair in commerce. And religion is the source of such concepts as the Protestant work ethic, which can drive people to work long and hard.
I plead guilty to being infected with a bad case of the Protestant work ethic.
But I'm working hard to get over it.
X Bill Tammeus is a columnist for The Kansas City Star. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.